I don’t usually let things get under my skin, but today? I nearly lost it.

It started at the feed store. I was there picking up mineral blocks and fencing wire, dressed in my usual gear—mud-stained boots, faded jeans, and my long blonde braid tucked under an old baseball cap. The guy behind the counter gave me this look, like I’d wandered in by mistake, and asked if I was looking for the gift shop.

I said, “Nope. Just here for the same supplies I’ve been buying every week for ten years.”

He laughed. Then he asked if my “husband” would be loading the truck.

I told him my husband took off five years ago and, funny enough, the cows didn’t seem to notice. I run 240 acres on my own—mending fences, hauling hay, delivering calves at two in the morning. But people see a woman with blonde hair and assume she’s just playing rancher.

Even my neighbors still act like I need supervision. Roy, the guy across the creek, pops by to “check in” on my fences like I didn’t graduate top of my ag science class. He says things like “Don’t overdo it, sweetheart” while I’m patching his busted water line in the dead of winter.